S-PCS

Well, here's the 36, 23 re-re'd, 13 still outstanding. Out of the 23, special editions were released for: Rough Rider (Silver, Gold) Grasshopper (Black, Green) FAV (Shark) Hornet (Metallic, Mad Cow, Supreme) Hotshot (Metallic) Avante (Black Special) That's 6 out of 23 re-releases that are or were available as "special editions". That's roughly only 26%. Even more important, not a single one of these "editions" came out alongside or even close to the "original" re-release. Seems like the editions are always a year late, on average closer to three, and in some cases, 13. There's nothing here to suggest any link between re-re and special edition strategies. Since you can't special edition what hasn't been re-re'd yet, the editions naturally folllow behind the re-res in what seems to a somewhat similiar timeline, but that's not a statistical issue, that's more Albert Einstein territory. Let me get some coffee before we introduce time, space and the Universal Order of All Things to 2019 re-re guessing.

Simply scroll back thru the pages of this thread a little further, all special editions and the general timeline are accounted for. It's true though that I've never explored the re-release-to-special-edition ratio in full depth... I don't think there's much to that idea, but who knows, statistics are statistically full of surprises, and surprises are statistically most often unexpected. I'll look into this right away. Statistics, by the way, are in nature infallible. Statistically speaking.

I have both a Boomerang and a Manta Ray among my All Purpose General Abuse cars, and all I can say is the stock DF-01s handling is so far ahead of the stock Boomerang, it's actually coming up from behind... In comparison, Boomerang handles like a brick. A very lazy brick. And this is coming from a mostly Manta Ray despising lifelong Boomerang fan... But in terms of general survivability, Boomerang reigns supreme. My car is so ridiculously overpowered that it can do backflips from standstill and becomes airborne onroad, but somehow, it doesn't break. The DF-01 on the other hand - while less ridiculously overpowered - constantly chews gears (even the plastic set), throw shafts, loses shock towers or other random parts, and pops gear box covers.

Just finished this. First time I ever built one of those modernized vintage onroad kits, being a buggy guy and all... Just where do I run this now?

Basic stuff

Super Blackfoot came out in 1992, and that was no good year for old platforms. The whole monster truck thing was six years old already, stadium trucks had just started to appear, and the whole touring car thing was just beginning to happen... I remember seeing brand new Super Blackfoot at the local hobby store, and compared to everything else that was going on, it felt like old news... What'd they warm this thing over for? Bad timing is all that was wrong with it, if you ask me.

The day you start offering this setup in these colors as a complete kit with all hardware included, I'll be first in line to buy at least one... Right now, the long list of extra bits and pieces not to mention color options in the eBay description exceeds my attention span, or at least prevents me from making impulse purchases... Shame, really, 'cause that is probably the coolest, most factory-looking ORV upgrade anyone ever came up with.

I've been to Canada many times, and I can attest first hand to moose-related delivery disruptions in that country. Once, I ordered pizza, and the delivery guy called and asked me to come outside - because there was a moose in the driveway, and he couldn't get to the house. I stepped outside - this was a long, narrow, straight driveway with snow banks probably 6 feet high along both sides, and there I was on one end, delivery guy down at the street end, and this elephant-sized moose boxed in between us and the snow banks. It wasn't going anywhere, it simply glared at us, and we ended up having this full-blown Canadian Standoff thing going for a while, and in the end, delivery guy left - with my pizza! - the moose stayed where it was and I stayed hungry. If moose will do something like that to local commerce (and hungry foreign visitors!), just imagine what they could do to international shipping. .. Good thing I didn't pay for that pizza in advance.

Drive shafts popping out. Common ORV issue due to excessive play in the trailing arm pivots.

AmPro/MIP have just announced that they're working on a new telescopic shaft upgrade. I'd strongly recommend that to any ORV owner.

Finally. The ORV world has been waiting for this. The single most useful upgrade possible.

Buyer claims package never arrived, PayPal refunds him and recovers money from seller, who can't prove them wrong because even 19 years into the 21st century, it seems to be difficult to track shipments across borders. I've heard this, or scenarios like it many times over. Not sure how that recovery process is supposed to work, but I've experienced tracking problems across borders many times myself, usually when state postal agencies are involved. FedEx or UPS definitely don't have this problem. That, or moose. They are really scary.

I would have expected some sort of comment involving the phrase "hot body" by now, but then again, that might not be entirely family friendly.

The manual does say that, but I'd think that was supposed to keep shock loads off the extremely weak stock diff setup. MIP diff and hotter motor, those tires won't stick to the rims for long. I had to super glue mine even with the Sport Tuned.

From what I found, the single most pressing problem of the ORV is that under anything but very gentle use, it constantly throws drive shafts as soon as the rear trailing arm pivots are worn enough to allow the arms some sideways movement - that is, around every third to fourth run after you've installed new arms... Seems to me that the re-re "upgrade" shafts are the worst of all possible shaft types, and no amount of shims or o-rings could alleviate that. I went thru every single available trailing arm bracket, from kit to aftemarket plastic to aftermarket machined aluminum to Frog style brackets, and it makes close to no difference. Arms pivot, arms wear, arms move, shaft pops out, repeat. Short of installing bearings in the pivots or doing a CRP1606 sort of mod, I finally put in Thorp telescoping shafts. That didn't work at all (even though these were sold specifically for ORV upgrades) . In the end, I shortened the Thorp units, and spring loaded them (They're hollow), and NOW I've got a rear end that actually works. I really don't know if this problem was exaggerated by my mild combination of a Sport Tuned and 2S LiPo, or if just sticking with the silver can could prevent it, but to be honest, I don't think so. Those re-re shafts are so ridiculously short, they would probably only really work if you ran the truck on flat indoor surfaces only. Oh, hey, there's a catch. Thorp Shafts and MIP diff don't work together, but no MIP diff means no hotter motor whatsoever, unless you're going the oldfrogshot mod route - so there's a Thorp diff in the Blackfoot now. Add the Thorp wheel adapters (which are needed to run the telescoping shafts), and you all Thorped up and ready to go. I'm sure all those vintage Thorp parts still come up on eBay from time to time. All you need to do is somehow ignore the fact that they will be very, very expensive.

Not quite an answer to the question, but a somewhat period-correct anecdote nevertheless: My father was an electronics engineer, so when I got my first Tamiya kit in 1986, he found the idea of an MSC inacceptable, and got me an ESC, which as far as I remember, was about as expensive as the kit (a Tamiya 959) itself. I'll never forget that moment. He thought the kit (bought with my, um, life savings) was outrageously expensive, but he found the idea of an MSC so offensive that he didn't even flinch when he was told the ESC's price. Even though the car still exists, I've long forgotten the brand of that ESC, but it could have been a Futaba, and it survived any and all abuse that I threw at it. Talk about being over-equipped for the car park track...

Even someone not into Mercedes ought to be in awe of this car... Fastest road racing car of its time, as well as being the major factor in the worst auto racing accident in history, leaving 84 dead and almost 200 injured, keeping Mercedes out of competition for over 30 years, causing the so-called Corporate Racing Ban that nearly killed off several US car makers and ultimately gave rise to the legend of John DeLorean and the Pontiac GTO. Call it one of the most influential car designs of all times, if you will. And don't forget that the civilian 300 SL was the car that made Chevrolet offer Fuel Injection on Corvettes (and Fullsizes) 1957-up, some 30 years ahead of time, just to show that it could be done, and to prove that mighty Chevrolet would take on anyone, anywhere, anytime - an idea that grew from there and ended up shaping much of the worldwide economic realities of the rest of the 20th century, resulting more or less directly in US involvement in the middle east and the current political landscape of the world. That car right there, that's a pivotal moment in the history of mankind, and all they meant to do was go racing.

Hotshot chassis, 959 decals, 205 Group B body, all in one car, that's got to be approaching offroad racing legendaryness critical mass.

When I made Ramblin' Ron wear a helmet for safety reasons, he somehow removed his name from the door of his Blackfoot. Ithink he doesn't want to be recognized while wearing a safety device... You can see that he really needs one though.

I never ever thought of framing the box tops before, but I really like that idea. I still have some orignal boxes from the 80s, with their respective cars long gone... I think I'll frame those.

Seriously, it did involuntarily cross my mind... "Should have kept this kit NIB, one day they'll be super collectible, very early production run type of stuff". It's a good thing I realized that only after building it. Whew, narrowly escaped becoming a serious NIB collector once more! There's a theory... The upcoming-King Cab-rerelease-conspiracy theory.

It's #9005354, brand new, just ordered this last week.

It's pretty obvious now that I realized the Sport Tuneds aren't zero timed. Weird. Sport Tuneds always were the "I can't afford a real motor upgrade" option when I was a kid, and to this day I've thought of them as no more than slightly hotter silver cans. I read yesterday that they have significantly more torque than the silver cans too. Probably need to reevaluate my position towards them. It's been a while since I've given this any serious thought, so I just got out a Sport Tuned, and wouldn't you know, there's even a little 540 vs. ST comparison chart on the box. I guess you could zero the timing on these, even though they're not designed for it. I'll save that idea for a rainy day.

Ok, didn't take too long to refresh my memory on this topic. Somehow it never crossed my mind that the cheap Tamiya STs aren't zero timed. That, of course, makes sense. I didn't really mean to upgrade the motors on the SCB... But now I'm kinda tempted. Thanks for the link, at that price, I might just give them a try.

Are you sure? The motors in the kit are two stock silver can 540s, with one connected with the wires reversed. If they work, the SportTuneds should, too? I remember reading up on this a long time ago, and seem to recall that the differences in performance were negligible at least with lower-performance brushed motors?